The educational effects of metacognitive learning awareness on undergraduate students.

Abstract

The importance of metacognition has been discussed extensively by numerous researchers. Most of the studies on metacognition generally focus on the approaches to foster metacognition or on assessing metacognition. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of metacognitive awareness and learning strategies on student success in Pre-Primary and Primary Education degree course in University of Palermo. The data was gathered from 700 undergraduate students through MAI Metacognitive Awareness Inventory[1] and ALM Awareness Learning Metacognitive [2]. The results showed that Metacognitive awareness and learning strategies have an important role on students’ academic success and they demonstrated also that the Italian version of MAI is a valid and reliable instrument which may serve as useful in guiding future research aiming to understand students’ metacognitive awareness. To inquire students' real-world study behaviours, we surveyed 127 undergraduate students and asked them to list strategies they used when studying (an openended free report question) and to choose whether they would reread or practise recall after studying a textbook chapter (a forced report question). The results of both questions point to the same conclusion: A majority of students repeatedly read their notes or textbook (despite the limited benefits of this strategy), but relatively few engage in self-testing or retrieval practise while studying. We propose that many students experience illusions of competence while studying and that these illusions have significant consequences for the strategies students select when they monitor and regulate their own learning. During testing, students have a valuable opportunity to exercise and improve their selfregulatory skills. This study investigated the effects of metacognitive skills and test types on students' test performances, confidence judgements, and on the accuracy of those judgements. A sample of 65 undergraduate students practising their fourth year (mean age = 21.9 years) were categorized according to their metacognitive skills (high vs average vs low) and had their test performances and monitoring processes in two different types of tests compared throughout one academic term. Their test preparation practices, along with their attributional and regulatory processes during test-taking, were also compared by using open-ended questions. The results demonstrated that differences in performance and judgment accuracy were significantly larger in the short-answer tasks, than in the multiple-choice exercises high-metacognitive students presented more effective test preparation practices, better test performances, and superior attributional, regulatory, and monitoring processes than their counterparts and students' performances and confidence levels varied in specific patterns according to the type of test being taken. The results are discussed, focusing on the educational implications of the interactions observed and on how they may determine what students can learn from test-taking experiences. In addition, based on the results obtained, specific suggestions on how to increase the metacognitive awareness of university students through instruction and on how to improve their academic assessment are provided.